Last month I set a new monthly goal for spending at $400 to include all groceries, health & beauty products, decorations, gifts, clothes, entertainment home improvements, etc. Basically anything that isn’t a billed item. The only exclusions are gasoline, childcare while I’m working and home repairs. This was a 20% or more cut to our budget. My goal of course is to pay off both our homes quicker.
In July we spent $400.51 of the $400. It looked like we would come in significantly under that goal, but I found several really good deals at CVS this weekend that I took advantage of in order to save down the road. I also loaded our McDonald’s gift card with an additional $50 on June 30 to take advantage of an extra 4% back on my purchase. We’ll spend that amount in about 6 months so I felt like it was worth doing.
I know my husband was hoping to have a little bit of splurge money from our budget savings, but he’ll just have to wait until next month. Since I didn’t end up with any splurge money for myself either, I wasn’t able to add any money to our Disney fund from our savings, but I did ask for some Disney money from my parents for birthdays 
At this point after one month we need to reassess if this budget is working. While we didn’t stay within the budget we were very close. Quite a few of our purchases were for future gifts and consumption so I still think the $400 leaves us plenty of room. I’ll check back in next week to see if we’re staying on track for July.
As soon as I get all the updates installed for my computer that I reformatted last night I’ll make the extra principal payment on our house back in Arkansas. This was part of our commitment to our budget- we’ll be paying the extra payment up front each month so it will force us to stay within our budget.
Let’s review:
Getting Out of Debt Step 1: Know how much debt you have and the associated interest rates.
Getting Out of Debt Step 2: Build an Emergency Fund
Getting Out of Debt Step 3 (Budgeting Step 1): Know how much money you have to spend and make sure your tax withholdings are correct.
Getting Out of Debt Step 4: Create a Budget
Budgeting Step 2: Track your current expenses– preferably 1 year’s worth – to see where you’re spending money.
Budgeting Step 3: Make a plan for all your money, taking into account one time expenses.
Budgeting Step 4: Check up weekly
Budgeting Step 5: Reassess monthly
Is your family on a budget too? What are your goals?
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you are so disciplined – love it!
Haha, Perhaps in some things. There is the little problem of the M&Ms